METAPHYSICAL MEETING, February 15, 2010
Contents
| - Topic | |
| - Call to the meeting | |
| - Readings | |
| - Member contribution A | |
| - Member contribution B | |
| - Member contribution C | |
| - Member contribution D | |
| - Member contribution E |
Topic
Bringing things to fruition
Call to the meeting
You are all invited to join in supporting our monthly metaphysical meeting to be held on Monday, February 15, at 7:30 p.m. Based on the feedback we obtained at the January meeting, the topic this month is:
Bringing things to fruition
In considering this timely topic, let’s stand back from the brink of corporeal sense or expectation, and apply the sharpest of spiritual sense to discerning the deeper aspects of fruition. In doing this, you are invited to consider the following four topics, which we will discuss at our meeting.
A. What is real fruition, i.e. how does God see our church in terms of fulfilment?
B. How do we reflect the fruition of the divine Mind?
C. What opposes divine fruition, and how do we address it?
D. And, to summarize and conclude the discussion: What is the present reality?
The readings will not be read at the meeting, which will be essentially a metaphysical discussion, although you are welcome to read prepared remarks to introduce discussion. We will also sing several hymns.
Although this is a prayerful discussion meeting, your written thoughts on the topic are most welcome, whether they be utterly brief or in detail. As usual, please send them to Graham so that they can be posted on our web site.
Mary Baker Eddy wrote: “It is conceded that our shadows follow us in the sunlight wherever we go; but I ask for more, even this: That this dear church shall be pursued by her substance, the immortal fruition of her unselfed love, that her charity, which ‘seeketh not her own’ but another’s good, shall reap richly the reward of goodness.” (My 19:18-24)
Readings
Gen 1:26 (to 4th ,),31 (to .)
Matt 6:26,30,33
Isa 45:11-13 (to :)
Prov 3:9,10
S&H 260:13-15 (to ;)
S&H 298:13-15,19-20
Ret 92:5
S&H 393:16-18
My 155:4
Hymns: 141, 166, 350, 197
Member contribution A
When I read the call letter, the quote of Mrs Eddy saying, “This church shall be pursued by her substance, the immortal fruition of her unselfed love” (My 20-22), I though of the last verse of the 23rd Psalm, “Goodness and mercy shall follow This Church all the days of its existence, and it shall dwell in Love forever.” This seemed to me to be a statement of fruition, and when I read the Psalm from this standpoint, it seemed to be a pathway. This is my rewrite:
The Lord is the shepherd of the church, He provides its every need.
The green pastures and still waters show it beautifully and bountifully located and cared for.
The restoration of its soul gives the inspiration and direction to us to carry this to fruition.
The paths of righteousness — prayer-directed action — lead directly to this goal.
The valley of the shadow of death — all setbacks and negative reaction — cause the church no fear because God is bringing us through the valley supported by His rod and staff, which insure a good demonstration and limitless love, purifying and focusing our goal, sustaining us in transition and unfolding each detail.
Love prepares the table, church, where it needs to be, blesses it with consecration, and as the cup runneth over, we have abundant completion.
And the church continues to be followed by goodness and mercy, which protect and bless endlessly in the presence of divine Love.
Member contribution B
So often, the idea of bringing things to fruition includes an element of time — whatever is expected to happen will happen, we hope, sometime in the future. That’s not really the way God works. When creation was finished, it was complete and it was unchanging good. This is a promise that we don’t have to wait for good things, a change from an apparent unsettled state, to happen in the future. God’s plan is accomplished now and is continually being revealed.
The readings for tonight’s meeting have many gems and show a logical progression of unfoldment. Seek the Kingdom of God and “all these things” will be added. A couple of things stood out to me in the citations from Science and Health. The first citation ends at a semicolon. However, the rest of the sentence tells us why we might not reach fruition:
Science reveals the possibility of achieving all good, and sets mortals at work to discover what God has already done; but distrust of one’s ability to gain the goodness desired and to bring out better and higher results, often hampers the trial of one’s wings and ensures failure at the outset. (emphasis added) (260:13)
Isn’t this telling us that if we’re fearful, concerned that there might not be a right solution, concerned that the right place may not be available, that it may cost too much, or whatever, that failure is pretty much guaranteed? To achieve fruition, we would take each lurking concern that comes to mind, reverse it, and declare the truth, that church is an eternal manifestation of God, always in its right place, always being expressed in a form that is available to all, with the appropriate resources and exposure. Mrs. Eddy gives instruction for countering this when she says, “Knowledge that we can accomplish the good we hope for, stimulates the system to act in the direction which Mind points out” (394:7-10). Here she’s specifically talking about how to heal the body, but the same truth is applicable to the body of the church.
Another point that struck me is the immediacy of God’s work. This, too, counters the erroneous belief that fruition has to be in the future. In Ecclesiastes, the preacher says, “That which hath been is now; and that which is to be hath already been...” (Eccl. 3:15). We don’t have to wait for our new church home to be revealed in the future. It exists. As Jesus said about the harvest (John 4:35), we just need to open our eyes [“spiritual discernment” (586:3)] and see it.
Member contribution C
Bearing fruit is to me demonstrating Christian Science, healing sickness, sin and death, and this is the result of living the principles of Christian Science constantly. “To live so as to keep human consciousness in constant relation with the divine, the spiritual, and the eternal, is to individualize infinite power; and this is Christian Science” (My 160:5).
Member contribution D
A. What is real fruition, i.e. how does God see our church in terms of fulfilment?
In Proverbs, chapter 11, we read: “[The] fruit of righteousness is a tree of life.” In the not-so-distant past, I would have interpreted “the fruit of righteousness” as meaning the material reward for doing good. But for quite some time, I have been growing into the understanding that the attainment of reflecting righteousness is the fruit.
B. How do we reflect the fruition of the divine Mind?
Mrs. Eddy states in Science and Health on page 4 in the chapter on Prayer: “Simply asking that we may love God will never make us love Him; but the longing to be better and holier, expressed in daily watchfulness and in striving to assimilate more of the divine character, will mould and fashion us anew, until we awake in His likeness.” We all have one character and that character is divine. We reflect this character by identifying and becoming conscious of God’s attributes and striving to express them.
C. What opposes divine fruition, and how do we address it?
Continuing the passage above from page 4 of Science and Health, it states, “We reach the Science of Christianity through demonstration of the divine nature; but in this wicked world goodness will "be evil spoken of," and patience must bring experience.” You might say that what opposes divine fruition is mortal fruition, the fruit of “the tree of knowledge of good and evil.” There is much in our world that appears to be good and there is much attraction to things that are evidently bad. Our work is to prize what is real and to bring it out in life as much as possible, and to exterminate the counterfeit as more than worthless.
D. And, to summarize and conclude the discussion: What is the present reality?
The present reality of our church membership and, indeed, of our wider community, is man reflecting God. In 2 Timothy, chapter 4, Paul speaks of the crown of righteousness and of the joy of witnessing the appearing of the Christ in all of us: “Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day: and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing.” In Miscellany p. 346, Mrs. Eddy wrote of her successor in terms of this reflection, shunning the shallow expectation of a temporal manifestation and setting our sights on the manifestation of the divine, here and now: “What remains to lead on the centuries and reveal my successor, is man in the image and likeness of the Father-Mother God, man the generic term for mankind." This is the only real fruition.
Member contribution E
A. What is real fruition, i.e. how does God see our church in terms of fulfilment?
We read in Science and Health, “The starting-point of divine Science is that God, Spirit, is All-in-all, that there is no other might not Mind, — that God is Love, and therefore He is divine Principle. To grasp the reality and order of being in its Science, you must begin by reckoning God as the divine Principle of all that really is. . . All substance, intelligence, wisdom, being, immortality, cause, and effect belong to God.” (275:6-17)
That statement doesn’t leave anything unstarted or unfinished. It acknowledges that the only activity, the only enterprise, the only outreach, is God’s. That includes the activity of our church. In understanding this, we must be careful not to see any other picture, but to realize the presence of God’s omniactive Principle throughout His/Her entire creation. This means that the only goal is divine Mind’s understanding, the only fulfilment is Love’s creating. Soul is expressed individually through the eternal empire of Spirit, which embraces individual outpourings of expression, completeness, opportunity, interest, foundation, fruition, fulfilment.
B. How do we reflect the fruition of the divine Mind?
It is really a turning away from any corporeal or other sense evidence to realize only the expression of Love as our church place and our church activity. It shows itself in the attitudes we have to ourselves, to our fellow church members, and to other churches in our community. In Science and Health we read, “The test of all prayer lies in the answer to these questions: Do we love our neighbor better because of this asking? Do we pursue the old selfishness, satisfied with having prayed for something better?” (9:5)
We can expect response from our members, our neighbors, and our community. We go about our daily church business in the confidence that we reflect the operation of divine Mind.
C. What opposes divine fruition, and how do we address it?
The only opposition is the mortal, corporeal mind-set. It has no reality, no truth, it is a falsity. Nevertheless, we must deal daily with the human mind, recognize that our real church is the spiritual expression of the divine, and that any frustration, opposition, difficulty, lack of progress, is not in God’s plan, and not the spiritual reality. It doesn’t matter what others think or say, - and that doesn’t mean we excuse our own foibles. It does mean that God is the governor of All.
One could say that the only opposition is in the material concepts of chance and lost opportunity, which originate in a material basis of thought, which Mrs Eddy referred to as animal magnetism. She wrote, “The doors of animal magnetism open wide for the entrance of error, sometimes just at the moment when you are ready to enter on the fruition of your labors, and with laudable ambition are about to chant hymns of victory for triumphs. The doors that this animal element flings open are those of rivalry, jealousy, envy, revenge. It is the self-asserting mortal will-power that you must guard against.”
We can challenge and overcome this opposing thought. The only place where it can exist is in our own concept of the situation. And even our own thought is really not human at all. Our true thought, our true consciousness of reality, comes from following the Christ, which speaks constantly to each of us, and to all of us as the church body.
D. And, to summarize and conclude the discussion: What is the present reality?
Our church is God’s business, not ours. We have the privilege of being part of that expression of Love that God pours out upon his children, his divine ideas. That expression is God’s, and we are part of it.
